Hyderabad: Bollywood superstar Salman Khan's latest release Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai returned to two cinema halls in Maharashtra on June 11 but the shows were cancelled the next day 'as nobody turned up'.
Radhe had a hybrid release May 13 and Salman on his part was always wary that the returns may not be spectacular. Speaking to the media before the film's release, the superstar had candidly confessed: "We will get the lowest numbers out of Radhe. At the time of release, Salman has apologised to theatre owners for going ahead with the hybrid model of release and said that once the situation gets better and the theatres opened, they would re-release the film in theatres.
As Maharashtra rolled out its Unlock plan from June 7, two cinema halls, one in Malegaon and the other in Aurangabad, took the initiative to open up by releasing Radhe – Your Most Wanted Bhai. The results, however, are significantly disappointing. While talking to a webloid, Tushar Tisage, the owner of Drive-in cinema in Malegaon said, "For the 7:30 pm show, 22 people came to watch the film in the car while 40 viewers sat on the chairs."
READ |Salman Khan's father Salim Khan says 'Radhe not a great film at all'
Tushar further added that they had to cancel the 9:30 pm show "as nobody turned up." Blaming the digital release for cold response to Salman starrer, he said, "I wish it had not come directly on OTT. Then the response would have been great. We had screened Mumbai Saga. It had released directly in cinemas and a lot of people had turned up to see it."
Looking at the film's budget and expected market profit, Radhe was expected to do at least Rs 250 to Rs 300 crore in theatrical business -- the sort of business the Bollywood box office is in dire need of right now. With pandemic showing no signs of coming to an end any time soon, and Salman Khan Productions being ready with Radhe, the only alternative was the digital media. Radhe dropped on the pay-per-view (PPV) platform Zeeplex for viewers in the country at the time when the industry was looking at a new way of taking films to the viewers, one that had never been tried out in the country before.
Based on the 2017 Korean action thriller The Outlaws, Radhe is an action drama where Salman co-stars with Disha Patani, Randeep Hooda and Jackie Shroff. The film is Salman's third outing with Prabhudeva after Wanted (2009) and Dabangg 3 (2019).
